Mortlach 21 Year Old - Gordon & MacPhail - Mid 2000s

Mortlach is one of the greatest Speyside whiskies in Diageo’s portfolio. The distillery’s robust, gutsy, earthy, beefy new make is a result of running the stills fast and using worm tub condensers, which minimises copper contact and gives a powerfully flavoured, deliberately sulphury new make that is frequently matured in sherry casks. 

Following the discontinuation of the much-loved Mortlach 16-year-old Flora & Fauna, the first official Mortlach core range was introduced in 2014 but flopped disastrously due to comically high pricing; the subsequent relaunch in 2018, with a return to reality-based pricetags, has been much more successful.  Gordon & MacPhail were previous licensed bottlers of Mortlach and have bottled the greatest examples from the distillery, including the famous Book of Kells editions and the extraordinary Generations bottlings, which included the first 70 and 75-year-old single malt whiskies ever bottled.

Distillery bottlings are, as the name suggests, bottled by or for the distillery from which the whisky has originated and are thus often referred to as Official Bottlings or OBs. Distillery bottlings are generally more desirable for collectors and usually fetch higher prices at auction than independent bottlings. They are officially-endorsed versions of the whisky from a particular distillery and are therefore considered the truest expression of the distillery’s character.

This ideal of the distillery character is regarded so seriously by the distilleries and brand owners that casks of whisky that are considered to vary too far from the archetype are frequently sold on to whisky brokers and independent bottlers. When this happens, it is often with the proviso that the distillery’s name is not allowed to be used when the cask is bottled for fear of diminishing or damaging the distillery’s character and status.